Disaster Dinners

*Even the keenest cooks get it wrong!* As anyone who is kind enough to keep up with my reviews knows, I'm something of a foodie. My girlfriend is wonderful at encouraging me and my kitchen confidence has been steadily rising since the end of 2007 when we moved in together. I'm going along to enrol for a NVQ in Professional Cookery tonight and thought I'd share this tale of woe from winter 2007 to encourage those of us who have more kitchen nightmares than triumphs to keep on trying! *You don't need to cook something just because it looks delicious!* From memory (which is a fickle beast at the best of times), my lovely girlfriend had just ...  Read the complete review

You really might find this hard to believe but I can honestly tell you it is true. When I first started living with my 'wife to be' I really would try to please her in every way I could. I mean don't we all try our hardest at the beginning. Something we should all continue to do, but sadly for most of us complacency slips in and we stop trying as much as we perhaps should. Anyway back to the topic. It was a day during the week when I had a day off but unfortunately my fiancee didn't. I hadn't really been brought up to cook or clean etc. My mum tended to do all that. Anyway on the day in question I cleaned all the house from top to bottom. Washed the ...  Read the complete review

I can't cook. When I first met my boyfriend I couldn't even crack an egg! My culinary skills were opening the freezer, choosing a ready made meal, opening the box and placing the plastic tray into the pre-heated oven and then serving once throughly cooked. My skills have moved on slightly from this and I'm now more willing to actually try stuff in the kitchen. It may not be the stuff of a world renowned chef, but at least i give it a go. My first disaster was when I made flapjacks. I was feeling very proud of my cooking skills as the night before I had made a Toad in the Hole from scratch and it was perfect. So in I went to the kitchen, grabbed a reciepe ...  Read the complete review

Perfect cooking does come with practice (well for some!), but even the best of us can make some pretty horrific mistakes. It is very difficult for me to pick out one particular culinary disaster that's overall worse than all the rest, so rather than rant on about a single one for reams and reams, I'll rant on for reams and reams instead about a handful of kitchen cock-ups which I've either been guilty of myself, or have been done by other people. END OF TERM COOKERY EXAM It was a couple of weeks away from the summer holidays, at the end of my first year at secondary school (1966), and we were doing our end of term exams. Our rather ...  Read the complete review

Who uf us ahsnt't had a disaster in the kitchen at some point, but What I want to know is why does it always happen when you expect guests? You can make the same recipe a million times, and it always comes perfect, but the night you decide to cook it for your guests, will be the night disaster struck. A few months ago my husband invited a friend for dinner, and as they entered the house, told me how my husband was singing my praises as a cook. I felt confident, as I was making my favourite chicken stew, and was sure they would love it...except everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. The rice was overcooked and lumpy, and the chicken not only burned, but ...  Read the complete review